‘Justice won’t be denied’: Prosecutor argues Christopher Weiss was responsible for baby daughter’s brutal murder

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - Christopher Paul Weiss was not only responsible for Azariah Martinez’s life, but he also was responsible for her death, a Dallas County prosecutor told jurors to open Weiss’ capital murder trial Tuesday.

“Justice may be delayed, but justice won’t be denied,” Assistant District Attorney Scott Wells said in opening statements, referring to the 2017 shooting deaths of Valarie Martinez and her 1-year-old daughter, Azariah.

Testimony in the 32-year-old Weiss’ capital murder trial began Tuesday, with testimony from a woman who discovered the double slaying in November 2017 at Tradinghouse Lake Park, one of the first deputies on the scene, Martinez’s mother, a forensic pathologist and the Texas Ranger who investigated the deaths.

Martinez, 24, whose affair with the married Weiss produced a daughter, Azariah, was found lying on the ground with four gunshot wounds to the head about 10 feet from her blue Ford Focus at the lake park. Azariah was found with two gunshot wounds to the head, still strapped into her car seat.

Defense attorney Walter M. Reaves Jr., who is representing Weiss with Russ Hunt Jr., told the jury during his opening statements that the state’s case is built on “assumptions and presumptions.” He said prosecutors will be asking the jury to “fill in the blanks” to help the state overcome its burden of proof.

“This case was literally solved within 48 hours,” Reaves said. “In the end, you are not going to have a murder weapon, no evidence tying him to the scene, no DNA, not anything. You are going to be left with assumptions and the only appropriate verdict will be not guilty.”

Wells told the jury that Martinez and Weiss met under false pretenses on a dating app. He said Weiss used a fake name, said he was in the Army and was single, when in fact, he was married and had a son and a daughter and was not in the Army.

After learning that Martinez, who worked at Sanderson Farms, was pregnant, Weiss, still using the fictitious name James, told her his duties in the Army required him to be gone, leaving Martinez to raise the child alone, Wells said.

Later, at the urging of family members and Martinez’s desire to “break that generational curse” of children being raised by single mothers, she and Weiss reconciled their differences and she allowed him into Azariah’s life.

Weiss and Martinez last saw each other on the night before the bodies were found at the lake.

Wells, Dallas County District Attorney John Cruezot and Priscilla Pelli are handling the prosecution of Weiss’ case because McLennan County District Attorney Josh Tetens recused his office.

Kristian Velasquez opened prosecution testimony with a vivid description of the day she and her wife spotted Martinez’s blue car parked in the roadway at the park while they were on their way to visit her father.

She said they saw Martinez’s body, which was covered in a red blanket, lying 10 feet from her car. After opening the car door, they saw a baby covered in what they initially thought to be spaghetti sauce, she said. However, Velasquez, who began to cry, told the jury that they realized the baby was dead, too.

“I started screaming, ‘Oh my God, someone’s shot this baby,’ " she said. “We were scared because if someone shot a baby, they would shoot us, too.”

McLennan County Sheriff’s Deputy Matthew Glover wiped away tears, along with some members of the jury, as he described being one of the first law enforcement officers on the scene.

“I see evil and death every day, but this was the first time I saw a child killed like this,” he said, apologizing for becoming emotional.

After the lunch break, 19th Judge Thomas West dismissed a 20-year-old member of the jury who slept Tuesday morning during a portion of the testimony with the hood of his jacket pulled over his head. He was replaced with one of the two female alternate jurors selected Monday.

In other prosecution testimony Tuesday, Texas Ranger Jake Burson testified about his involvement in the case and his 4 ½ hour interview with Weiss the day after the bodies were discovered. Wells played about 2 1/2 hours of the videotaped interview for the jury in which a talkative Weiss denied involvement in the deaths.

Weiss admitted that his life was in a downward spiral at the time, telling the Ranger he had lost his job at a glass plant in Waco, lost his home, lost his wife’s car, had no money and had to move his family in with his cousin in Temple.

Weiss arrived at the sheriff’s office in Waco for the interview with his wife and two children. They waited in another room during Weiss’ prolonged interview with Burson, during which Weiss voluntarily gave up his cell phone and a DNA sample for forensic examination and offered to give investigators the clothes and boots he wore the night before.

Weiss said he has made a lot of mistakes in his life, including the affair with Martinez, but told Burson he was trying to do the right thing by being a part of Azariah’s life to the detriment of his marriage. He said he is not capable of killing anyone.

Burson told jurors he detected discrepancies in Weiss’ timeline and whereabouts the night before the bodies were found and testified Weiss was emotionless when he told him Martinez and Azariah had been killed.

“He just sat there,” Burson said. “There really wasn’t much of a reaction. He stated he thought something like that might have happened.”

Weiss told Burson he has owned several rifles and handguns and said he owned what he called a “pea shooter,” or .22-caliber revolver that he told the Ranger was either stolen out of his truck or lost or misplaced in the family’s move to Temple.

A forensic pathologist said the gunshot wounds that killed Martinez and her daughter were consistent with a small-caliber weapon.

Burson will be under defense cross-examination when the trial continues Wednesday morning.

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